Donald Trump has officially moved to to ban bump stocks, the controversial devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like automatic firearms. Bump stocks were used by gunman Stephen Paddock who killed 58 people at a music festival in Las Vegas in October last year, the worst mass shooting in modern US history. A senior Justice Department official said bump stocks will be banned from late March next year. Following the Las Vegas shooting the devices became a focal point in the national gun control debate. Paddock rained a hail of bullets from his 32nd-floor Las Vegas hotel room, killing 58 people at a concert. Following the shooting Mr Trump said he would ban the devices. However, opposition from the National Rifle Association prevented a law being passed by Congress. Instead, a regulation was signed by Matthew Whitaker, the acting attorney general, on Tuesday. It will go into effect 90 days after being formally published, which is expected to happen on Friday, the Justice Department official said. In March, Mr Trump said his administration would "ban" the devices, which he said "turn legal weapons into illegal machines." Shortly after his comments the justice department announced it had started the process to amend firearms regulations to define bump stocks as machine guns. That reversed a decision in 2010 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives[ATF] that bump stocks were not machine guns. Since the Las Vegas shooting at least 10 US states have introduced their own restrictions on the devices. Under the new regulation owners of bump stocks will have to surrender them to the ATF, or destroy them, by late March. Paddock was armed with assault weapons, 14 of them fitted with bump stocks which increased their rate of fire. After killing the concert-goers Paddock shot himself dead. The largest maker of bump stocks, Slide Fire Solutions, announced in April that it was going to stop taking orders and shutting down its website.

Carey Dean Moore, who was on death row for 38 years over the killing of two cab drivers in 1979, was put to death on Tuesday. Nebraska has carried out the first execution in the US using fentanyl, the opioid painkiller that killed Prince and has a central role in America’s overdose epidemic. The state put Carey Dean Moore, a double murderer, to death on Tuesday morning, the first execution there for 21 years.

A judge on Friday refused to block Nebraska from carrying out the state's first-ever lethal injection despite a pharmaceutical company's claims that the state illicitly obtained its drugs, clearing the way for the country's first execution with fentanyl. US District Judge Richard Kopf denied the company's request to temporarily block state prison officials from executing Carey Dean Moore, one of the nation's longest-serving death row inmates. Moore is scheduled to die on Tuesday in Nebraska's first execution since 1997 with a never-before-tried combination of drugs. Moore, who was convicted of killing two cab drivers five days apart in 1979, has stopped fighting the state's efforts to execute him. Mr Kopf said granting the drug company's request would "frustrate the will of the people," referring to the 61 percent of Nebraska voters who chose to reinstate capital punishment in 2016 after lawmakers abolished it. "I will not allow the plaintiff to frustrate the wishes of Mr Moore and the laws of the state of Nebraska," he said during the hearing. At a glance | Fentanyl Attorneys for the drug company, Fresenius Kabi, filed a lawsuit earlier this week arguing that state officials improperly obtained at least one of the company's drugs. Attorney Mark Christensen said the company planned to file an immediate appeal of Friday's ruling. In Nevada, a judge indefinitely postponed an execution last month after drugmaker Alvogen filed a similar lawsuit over one of its products. Moore is scheduled to be executed with a combination of four drugs: the sedative diazepam, commonly known as Valium, to render him unconscious; fentanyl citrate, a powerful synthetic opioid, which would help render him unconscious; cisatracurium besylate to induce paralysis and halt his breathing; and potassium chloride to stop his heart. US death penalty by state Fentanyl is among the drugs that have fuelled America's opioid epidemic. Prince died after accidentally overdosing on the painkiller. Pharmaceutical companies have become increasingly intent on preventing their life-saving or pain relieving products being tainted with use in executions. Campaigners against capital punishment believe it has left American states with a finite supply of lethal chemicals. Fresenius Kabi argues that it manufactured the state's supply of potassium chloride and possibly the cisatracurium. Nebraska state officials have refused to identify the source of their execution drugs, but Fresenius Kabi alleges the state's supply of potassium chloride is stored in 30 millilitre bottles. Fresenius Kabi said it's the only company that packages the drug in vials of that size. Fresenius Kabi said Nebraska's use of its drugs would damage its reputation and business relationships. The company said it takes no position on capital punishment, but strongly opposes the use of its products for use in executions. No other public evidence has surfaced to confirm the supplier's identity. A state judge in Nebraska ordered prison officials in June to release documents that might reveal the source of the drugs, but the state has appealed that ruling. State attorneys deny Fresenius Kabi's allegation that prison officials obtained the drugs illicitly.